Water through a bedroom ceiling, single storey, long-run iron. Buckets down. Nothing electrical near it.
The southerly hits and every roof rings at once
A roofing answering service that picks up all of them at the same moment, so nobody gets an engaged tone and tries the next name.
9:41
Monday, 31 August9:41
Two reroof quotes and one insurance inspection, all taken and booked. None of them rang out.
Roofing work does not arrive evenly, it arrives all at once
A wet week is worth more than a dry month and you cannot take a call on a wet roof. The problem is never the volume of work. It is that eleven people ring in the same hour and one phone can hold one of them.
Right now
Water is inside the house
A ceiling gone dark, a bucket on the dining table, iron lifted in the wind. The caller is asked where the water is getting in, how much of it there is, and whether it is anywhere near a light fitting or a switchboard. Then you are rung, not texted.
A reroof, once the rain stops
Tired long-run on a fifty year old house and an owner who wants a number. Age, profile, pitch, storeys and whether scaffolding is likely all get asked, and the measure is booked for a day you can actually stand on it.
An insurance job
Wind takes tiles off and an assessor is already involved. The claim number, the insurer and what has been done to make it safe are all taken on the first call, so nobody rings the customer back for the basics.
Six questions that decide whether you load scaffolding
Roofing is the trade where the answers change what goes on the truck. These are asked while the caller is still talking, not the next morning.
9:41
Monday, 31 August9:41
Water into a bedroom ceiling at the valley. Long-run, roughly 40 years old, single storey.
Nothing electrical near the water. Furniture moved, buckets down.
You will ring back to confirm a time. No time was promised.
Where it is in
Which room, whether it is at a valley, a flashing, a penetration or out in the middle of a sheet, and how much water is actually coming through.
What the roof is
Long-run, tile, membrane or shingle, and roughly how old. It is the difference between a half hour patch and a job that needs a quote.
Getting up there
Single or two storey, the pitch if the caller knows it, and whether scaffolding or an edge system is going to be needed. That decides the price more often than the roof does.
Anything electrical
Water near a light fitting, a downlight or a switchboard stops being a roofing question. The caller is told to keep clear of it and get an electrician, and it goes in the notes.
Insurer or assessor
Whether a claim is open, who the insurer is and what the claim number is. Taken on the call, because chasing it later is a phone call nobody wants to make twice.
Made safe yet
Tarpaulin on, furniture moved, power off in that room. It tells you whether this is tonight or tomorrow, and the caller is told plainly which one it is.
What it will not do
It will not book a roof into weather you cannot work in. A weather-dependent job is held as an enquiry for you to place, because a booking you have to ring back and cancel is worse than no booking. It does not price a roof it has not seen either. It is reception, not a roofer.
The leak is written up before you are off the scaffold
A name and a number is not a job. It counts once it is sitting in your system, on the right customer, with the site address and the notes already on it.
Fergus
The customer is matched against your existing Fergus contacts, or created if they are new, and the leak or the reroof is written into Fergus against them with the site address, the urgency and every answer above in the notes. Where you have asked us to, the diary is read before a time is offered, so a caller can be told when somebody is coming rather than guessed at. Nothing to re-key when you get down.
ServiceM8
The caller is matched to your client list, told what stage their job is at, and the job is lodged with the site address on it. Fair warning while you are comparing: ServiceM8 sells its own AI phone agent, it is live in New Zealand, and using theirs means moving your number onto their phone add-on. We never ask you to move your number, and we connect to ServiceM8 either way.
Google Calendar
If the week lives in a shared Google Calendar rather than a job system, that is the diary it reads and writes. Measures and inspections go into the real diary at the next genuinely free slot, with the address in the entry, so a day already committed to a reroof does not get an inspection dropped on top of it.
Xero
Your Xero contacts are the phonebook. The property manager who rings you every winter is known by name the moment she rings, and the job goes on her account without anyone looking it up. Card details are never read out over the phone.
Running something else? Tell us what you use and we will quote the integration work.
The weather does not wait for office hours
Roofs let go in the evening and on Sundays, because that is when the wind gets up. The caller with water coming in will take the first person who picks up.
You choose what happens overnight. It can take the details and hold them until morning, or it can ring you, and keep ringing down a roster until somebody actually answers. Whichever you pick, the caller is told the truth about when they will hear back.
If out of hours cover is the only thing you want, there is a whole site about it at callanswering.co.nz.
Nobody is queued behind anybody
Eleven callers in the storm hour are eleven conversations happening at the same time. That is the part a message service cannot do, and it is the whole reason roofing is on this list.
Get set up
Give us the number and tell us what counts as urgent on a roof. We do the rest and ring you before it answers anything.
Your number
You keep it. You divert your existing number to us and you can turn that divert off from your own handset whenever you want.
Set up
Your account opens straight away. Your agent is built and trained within 24 hours, and we walk you through it first.
Weather rules
Tell us what you will not book into rain or wind, and it holds those as enquiries instead of putting them in the diary.
Not a roofer
Builders
No emergencies, long lead times, and a quote call you only get one shot at.
Carpenters
Decks, doors and fit-outs, sized on the call so a half day is booked as a half day.
Plumbers
The toby, the ceiling and the nine at night call that pays for the month.
Every trade is along the top of the page, and why us is the short version of what makes this different from the rest of them.
Answer the whole storm, not one call of it
Your account opens straight away and your agent is built within 24 hours. No card, and nothing answers your phone until you have heard it and said yes.